


the viscount's way

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Character Studies (Dragon Age) [16]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Darkest Timeline, F/M, Gen, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Lawful Evil Varric, Post-Trespasser, Viscount Varric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-04-05 01:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14033163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Viscount Tethras is the most powerful man in Kirkwall, and he changes the city with his rule.  It changes him, too, into a man his parents could be proud of.(A series of drabbles wondering what a lawful evil Varric would look like.  A darkest timeline AU.)





	1. what we become

**Author's Note:**

> Remember Varric's worst fear in the Fade? _Becoming his parents._

The grand office is awash in tapestries of red and gold; angular motifs line the walls, strong lines and crafted stonework.  The man sits at the end of a long table in a tall-backed chair, a blocky golden crown resting on his grey hair.  He stares out the window into the distance, the city small and faint below.

His hands move restlessly over the table, a fine mechanical pen resting between his thumb and middle finger.  He circles, signs, decrees.  Vellum parchment carries his wants and wishes and sends them out into the world, and the world acquiesces.

Ink stains his fingertips, a different kind of bloodstain.  He’s traded in many, in his time.  Kirkwall has always had that same streak of meanness in it, but he’s tidied it up and put it in a prettier package, and the coin flows.

He knows the accusations thrown in the streets of the city; his eyes and ears are everywhere these days.   _Corruption’_ s the name of the game, but the people are better off with him, and if his accounts benefit, too, what’s the problem?  He has his own worries.

His hand pauses on letters from the guild.  They’re desperate, begging for his attention.  The thought pleases him.  It’s good to have them where he wants them.  Finally, House Tethras is where it was meant to be.

He hesitates over their latest missive.  His fingers tremble against the pen, inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl.  It gleams in the candlelight.  

He hasn’t written for himself in so, so long.

For just a moment, he remembers a different life; stories silver on his tongue, the crossbow straining beneath his touch, the blood-streak on her nose, the hand awash in Fadelight.  He remembers a little graveyard in an impossible place of floating stone and an endless sea; remembers foul nightmares lurking in the shadows.

Viscount Tethras chuckles.  Imagine being afraid of coming into your own.  He gives an easy smile to the family portrait hanging on the wall, and he gets back to work.


	2. the darkness kept

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's the difference between a rumor, a story, the truth? The lines blur in the new Kirkwall.

Viscount Tethras kept the darkness back. That was the truth of it.  Kirkwall shone under his rule, the streets clean, the people fed, the coin flowing.  

He’d been a storyteller once, the rumors said.  Now he told stories in a different way, Kirkwall’s streets a handy stand-in for the page, and his truth flashed itself in wry smiles, gruff laughter, red-inked decrees.

 _Sure_ , he seemed to say without saying it.  _You could go back to the way things were_ , Qunari and blood mages and templars in the streets, gangs cutting purses and throats in the night. Or you could follow the Viscount’s way.  If the streets were so safe that the only men to fear were the Viscount’s, well, wasn’t that better than before?

They said the Viscount used to run in Lowtown, that he used to break the rules for a laugh, when the price was right, when the rules were  _wrong_. They said he used to keep a room in the Hanged Man and that he used to drink the Champion under the table. But the Champion wasn’t around to ask, and the stories grew harder to believe every year, especially when you looked round the Viscount’s chambers. That kind of gold would never grace a Lowtown barman’s hand.

The rumors flourished, but you never knew the source; noble quarters or Carta dens, anywhere was possible. They told tales of strange people arguing with the Viscount, a white-haired elf, a pirate queen, a quiet mage in Dalish armor. Somehow the stories always seemed to end the same, with Kirkwall at their backs and the road before them, and the Viscount grand and grinning, throwing another party.  They were such  _good_  parties.

And, well, when the Viscount dismissed the Captain of the Guard, he must’ve had a reason, right?  They’d butted heads so often, after all.  There must have been a reason… even if the Captain left Kirkwall still in her guardsman’s armor, wearing it like a badge of honor.  There  _must_ have been a reason.

The new dwarven Captain seemed good enough, anyway.  The gold buttons on his gilded uniform shone in the Marcher sun, and the streets were clean for the parade, and the people were splendid in their finery with their purses full and their mouths shut.

Viscount Tethras kept the darkness.

I mean, he kept it  _back._   

That’s all I meant to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aveline would have fought to the bitter end ;_;


	3. numbers to keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Viscount reminisces with former members of the Inquisition.

“You’ve done a lot here.  You can see it throughout the city.”

“I hear you’ve done well yourself.  Thom Rainier’s a changed man.”

“That I am.  Something we have in common, some would say.”

* * *

“Huh.  Never thought you’d go in for this politics crap.”

“It’s a shitty job, but someone’s got to do it.  Might as well be me.”

“Yeah, you can tell yourself that if you like.  You’re still a pretty good liar.”

* * *

“My dear Viscount, I am impressed.  We have all heard the past rumors about Kirkwall and how dangerous it used to be.  It is truly a delight to see what you’ve done for this city.”

“Do I detect a note of jealousy, Madame de Fer?”

“Oh, it isn’t that, darling.  I simply wonder, is all of this what you really want?”

* * *

“You do not write anymore, do you?”

“Ah, I’m sorry, Seeker.  I’m pretty busy these days.  Can I still call you Seeker?”

“If you insist, Varric.”

“How’s it feel to be Divine?”

“Sometimes, I do not know myself.  I must be so much, to so many.  Do you feel the same?”

“Can’t say I do, Seeker.”

“No, I did not expect you to.”

* * *

“You realize you’re one of them?  You’re one of the big people, but there’s still a load of little people here.  In  _your_ city.”

“I know what I’m doing, Buttercup.”

“You know how to push down, now.  Shite.”

* * *

“You’re a long way from Tevinter, Sparkler.”

“Believe me, I’m well aware.  I must say, though, Kirkwall is nothing like what you described in your tales.”

“What can I say?  I’ve been busy.”

“For a dwarf, you’d make an  _excellent_ magister.”

* * *

“You used to write words before, silver stories to share, a dreaming stone.  But you’re only numbers to keep now.  I’m sorry.”

“Just – just go home, kid.”

* * *

“You’re as cheerful as ever, Chuckles.  So I take it you’re here to destroy the world?”

“To save it, child of the Stone.”

“You realize that saving it by destroying it is a shit idea.”

“It is not as if you have never done the same.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cole ;_;


	4. what the page saw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viscount Tethras receives a damning letter.

The page kept his head down, hurriedly tidying the Viscount’s papers.  He only needed one glance at the way the Viscount held himself – shoulders stiff, hands open, mouth a thin line with just the hint of a chilly smile – and he knew to stay out of the Viscount’s way today.

He filed, organized, carefully got the Viscount’s things in order.  Letters from the Guild into a certain gold-lined tray, letters from nobles into another, letters from other leaders and lords in another.  He replaced the nubby candles, burned down to their ends, with fresh ones; topped up the oil in the wall sconces.   He refilled the ink pots for the quills the Viscount used for official documents, cleaned and refilled the mechanical dwarven pens he used for personal correspondence.  The ink had congealed in one of the pens, and the page was mortified; he was only grateful that the Viscount had apparently had no need for the pen in weeks, so that the mistake was not discovered.  

The page hesitated over the newest letter, this one bearing a peculiar seal with an eye and a dazzling starburst.  These types of letters had gotten fewer and fewer over the past few years.  Still, though, he remembered his duty.  He called for the Viscount, and handed him the letter without flourish or ceremony.

The Viscount broke the seal and skimmed the letter’s words, his hooded eyes narrowing, a dull flush playing about his cheeks.  “Shit.  Well, that’s that.  Their loss.”  He shoved the letter, now a crumpled wad, back to the page.  “Get rid of it.  Same goes for anything else bearing that seal, from now on.  I don’t need to see them.”

“Of course, Lord Tethras.”  The page bowed his head, then backed away to the edge of the fireplace.  He turned to throw the letter aside, but for just a moment, he paused, partly unfurling the parchment.  He skimmed the last words, his curiosity kindled.

_…Thank you for everything you did for the Inquisition, Varric.  I will always be grateful to you for that.  But we can’t stay here any longer.  Not with the things I see done in your name._

_I blame myself for this, for Adamant, for what’s happened to you.  And I can’t fix it –_

The page shuddered, tossing the paper into the flames.  Its edges crisped, then burned, the smoke rising in winding grey tendrils.  

“Is there anything else you need, Lord Tethras?”

“Just leave me alone, Cricket.”

“Certainly, my lord.”  Cricket bowed again and took his leave, his footfalls soft on the fine-woven carpet.  Behind him the Viscount’s office door fell shut, its locks closing quietly with a  _snick_ , and Cricket went on with his duties, feeling somehow sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cricket was the boy in Darktown who was a Ferelden refugee, along with Walter. Varric helped the boys find work/homes after the business with the mage Evelina. Varric may have helped Cricket, but it's not enough for the Inquisitor to accept what he's become.
> 
> Of course, the Inquisitor blames themselves for what happened to Hawke, and by extension, what Varric became.


	5. unruhe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did the Viscount come into his own? It started with a loss.

He slept well, most nights. His bed was rich and fine, the bedding crisp and cool in the summers, warm in the winters. The room was still and quiet. A guard stood watch outside his door, for a Viscount had many enemies — this Viscount had many enemies — but he did not mind.

Most nights, he read reports before bed, lists of shipments, accounts of his holdings, bits of intrigue from his networks. And he slept untroubled, for numbers do not leave ghosts. (Except those that did, but he told himself that they were necessary, and he slept unhaunted.)

Most nights he turned away from the window, ignoring the stars and moonlight through the glass, and he slept in the inky blackness, his heart silent, calm.

But some nights… some nights he could not sleep. He would put on his dressing gown, pace with his bare feet on the cold stone, and he would look out at the stars and the moons and listen for the wind.

Tonight was such a night. He opened the window, and the air was cold and bitter on his face. He lit a candle, and its flame was small, so small, against the dark.

The book he searched for was dusty, now. He had set it aside some time ago. He gripped it in his hands and blew gently on the cover, the dust puffing up like a poison.

He only ever read portions of it, now. He knew it all by heart, but there was something important to him about reading at least some of it again. These were the parts that had never been shared. These were the parts he kept.

His private draft of  _Tale of the Champion_  was rather different from the final product. She was only herself, no more, no less in his own notes. He’d been so proud of the way he’d captured her there, then so amused by the way he shifted, modeled, molded her into something beyond. A hero for the people was what he sent into the world. What he kept for himself —

He shoved the book back onto the shelf. He’d kept her far too well. Kept her so damn well he never told her that he — and now, of course, she could not hear him, no matter what he said.

Viscount Tethras closed the window. Blew out the candle, his breath a puff like poison.

The bed was rich and fine, but he lay there on his back blinking in the moonlight, his hands fists, his hands trembling.

In the quiet, he whispered her name. And he did not sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I adore Hawke/Varric, but my headcanon of lawful evil Varric is that he loved her, he never told her, and then there was the Fade. In my other Hawke/Varric stories there are happier happenings, but everyone loves a foray into a darkest timeline, don't they?
> 
> Unruhe: German for unrest.


	6. distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric once said of Leliana, “To be honest with you, she’s just a better spymaster. The truly great ones can keep their distance. They don’t get attached to their people.”
> 
> He said that, once.

Viscount Tethras leaned against his desk and stared down at the parchment in his hands.  Hasty folds crisscrossed its surface, and a haphazard speckling of dark blood had dried across one corner.  He scanned the contents of the page and let out a sharp laugh.

“Now, that’s an interesting tidbit,” he said, cracking a grin.  “What they wouldn’t give to keep that kind of shit to themselves.  Well, we’ll find out.”  He folded the paper and slipped it into a heavy ledger on his desk, then suddenly turned to the elven man standing in front of him.  Despite the younger man’s greater height, his cringing posture made him seem somehow smaller than the Viscount.

“Everything all right?” he asked.  “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than hang around here.”  He said it with a smile, but the smile was made of steel, and it did not reach his eyes.

“My lord,” the young man said, glancing nervously from side to side.  “It’s just – they knifed Carrid for this.  I got away, but he didn’t make it.  He’s got a baby at home.  What do – what do we do?”

“You do nothing,” said the Viscount flatly.  “It’s handled.”  He reached into the drawer of his desk, pulling out a leather purse and tossing it to the other man.  “Now go on, kid.  Like I said.  You’ve got better things to do.”

The elf nodded, a muscle working in his throat, his eyes bright.  Then he ducked out of the Viscount’s office, a quiet jingle of coin announcing his departure.

Viscount Tethras opened the ledger, reaching for his pen.  Ink, lush and dark and glistening, spilled out of the nib in neat and perfect lines.    

_Carrid, Hightown, Satinalia 2, 9:47.  Payments to follow to widow and child._

The Viscount closed the ledger before the ink dried.  It would smudge, but it did not matter.

He plucked the bloodied parchment free from the ledger and gazed at it again.  He thought of what it had cost; he thought of what he could do with it.  He made the mental calculations and nodded, once.

Yeah.  Worth it.


	7. under a red moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Viscount has plans for the Gallows.

They rowed the Viscount to the Gallows beneath a red moon.

Fitting, that.  He couldn’t have written it better if he’d tried.  Though to be honest, he didn’t have the time for that.  Not anymore.

His guards did not speak.  Most of them had not known him before he became the Viscount.  The younger brother in the Hanged Man had all but disappeared, and his was a forbidding presence, grins in the light and blades in the dark.  There were no jokes, no stories, no conversation beneath the brooding, bitter moon.

Viscount Tethras gazed up at the sky.  The stars shook slightly with each slap of waves against the boat.  Thedas’ smaller moon was absent tonight, leaving an emptiness in the night sky that was overshadowed by the cast of blood.

The Viscount reached down, caressing Bianca leaning beside him.  The crossbow gleamed in the red moonlight, reflecting back red of her own.  The red lyrium upgrades he’d made long ago kept her deadlier than any other weapon.

The waves splashed, small soft sounds of the sea spreading inland into the city.  He remembered hot days on the Wounded Coast, the cries of shorebirds, easy laughter with Hawke and the others.  

But the city had been his alone for some time, now, and he listened to the sounds of the sea, finding them hollow.

His grip tightened on Bianca.  She had never let him down, after all.  Not like –

The sound of the waves faded.  It was quiet beneath the song, beneath the shimmering cascade of notes sweet and bitter both.  

Red moonlight on the water, red glow glinting beneath his gloved fingers.  Bianca sang her song, and he didn’t care if he was the only one to hear it.

The Gallows loomed ahead of them.  

The Gallows, and what remained of Meredith.  

The boat scraped against the stairs, and the Viscount strode forth onto the stone stairs, red-limned Bianca humming at his back.  The song was clear; it was beautiful; it was redolent of  _power._

And that suited him just fine.


	8. intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How much does intent matter, anyway?

Really, he wasn't sure intentions meant a thing.

He hadn’t intended much of it at all.  The city had bled, wounded and shattered. His coin helped just as much as bandages. That was how it started.

He’d always had the ears of people who mattered. It just sort of happened to him, something about the way he charmed them with an easy grin, an ale in hand, a story on his lips. Even when people knew he was a liar, they couldn’t help but trust him.  Especially when his coin fed the rescue efforts, when new stone went up in Hightown, when the people started to trade and sing again.  By the time the nobles got together and actually put the Viscount’s crown on his head, he half-wondered what had taken so long.

But still. He hadn’t meant any of it.

Hadn’t intended what it took to keep that crown, either. His hands grew dirtier. Blood surpassed ink when it came to greasing his hands, but in a distant, removed way that kept his sleep peaceful and his nights still.  He had a new crown commissioned, squared dwarven styling in gold.  It was only that the old crown was so uncomfortable, but if it looked good, too, who gave a shit? 

And he did look good.  His coats were better tailored than ever; the cost of the embroidery alone!  His gloves smelled of coin and parchment.  His calfskin boots forgot the narrow paths of Lowtown.

He hadn’t intended some things he’d never meant to do. The red lyrium humming in Bianca, powerful, dangerous. It had become almost familiar, the way it sounded low and sweet in his ears.  Funny how no one else could ever hear it, though.

If the song hummed too loud, he had ways to deal with that.  Ale and whisky he used to keep at a remove. He remembered Mom yellow in her bed, her hair like straw, her breath sick and sour all too well. Yet the drinks tasted better than they used to, and he kept them close at hand. He told himself it was under  control.

One night he left the Keep and its well-stocked kitchens, bearing Bianca for the first time in weeks, the fine cut of his clothes clear even in the moonlight.  He took a wrong turn once or twice – nobody had to know – and The Hanged Man was crowded as ever.

For a moment, Varric let himself remember.  He remembered home, he remembered Hawke, remembered the others who’d claimed this space with him.

The others had left Kirkwall long ago, though, and the bartender was new.  He brought Varric’s ale with an unnaturally wide smile.  Give him a year and he’d wear that out.  “You were asking about Corff, serah? Old Corff, he’s off to write his book, he is. It’s just me now,” said the young man cheerfully. He gave Varric a sudden odd look. “Do I know you?”

The Viscount grunted. “No,” he said, tossing a silver on the bar. 

He walked to Hightown in the dark several pints later, Bianca heavy and humming at his back, his footsteps uncertain.  He didn’t know why he’d come down here in the first place.  

He stopped, looked at the front door of the estate beside him.  His feet had carried him here.  He hadn’t intended that, either.

The Hawke banners were tattered, lonely things in the summer breeze.  He stood still for a moment, regarding them.  The years had not been kind to the ragged standards.  He laid a hand on the stone.  Solid work.  It would last, unlike the rapidly ribboning banners.

“An eyesore,” he mumbled, shaking his head, and kept on walking.

Later Bianca sat discarded on his floor, half-buried by scattered clothing and parchments.  Varric lay naked on top of the bed, spin-dizzy, exhausted, alone.  He stared at the stone ceiling.

He hadn’t intended on drinking so much tonight.  Hadn’t intended on going down to the Hanged Man.  

He  _definitely_  hadn’t intended to face those tattered banners, their red sigils fierce, and blazing, and forgotten.

The Viscount closed his eyes at that, and his head swam, an unpleasant roiling sensation that left his stomach clenching.   He’d been right, he realized coldly.

Intentions weren’t worth  _shit._


	9. the city of chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His city lies below him, and sooner or later, all good things flow into it.

Viscount Tethras never dealt in slaves. That much was true: always had been, always would be.

Aside from the abject cruelty of it, he just didn’t see the  _point_.  It had never been as profitable an enterprise as its proponents claimed.  Not to mention the social costs that would be incurred should he take it up.  His Kirkwall, a slaver’s haven?  His standing in the Marches would be destroyed.

So it was that any slaver that entered the city met a swift death.  The city guard knew their powers, and if a fair trial wasn’t offered, well, due process certainly was.  And the people talked.

The Viscount listened to the whispers, collected them like jewels with his networks in the damp and dark.  The words spread far beyond his own borders; they were traded in safehouses and hidden camps, a message, a beacon, a prayer.

They landed in droves in the Gallows, weary refugees fresh from the Qunari wars or the trouble with Chuckles.  They clustered on the stone steps, hope in their eyes.

He knew that look.  Remembered it on a young Fereldan, once; she had never quite shaken it.

The refugees dreamed like she had. They dreamed of safety. They dreamed of  _freedom_.  But dwarves didn’t dream at all, or hadn’t they heard?

He watched the tiny ships from the tall windows in the Keep.  They darted back and forth on the choppy water like silver fishes.  He felt himself a pelican, never sated, ever hungry for what they carried.  Sooner or later, all good things flowed into his city.  

He stood at the high window on a gilt-edged stool, peering out at the water, his hands resting upon the stone windowsill. They flexed convulsively as if to grab the ships that darted far below.  His fine leather gloves creased with the motion.

The chains in the harbor were no longer mirrored by chains on wrists and ankles, but that meant nothing much.  A price still had to be paid.  He would collect it.  

The stark stone loomed above the water, black shadows weighing on the little silver ships and the little people that they carried. A searing reminder that this always had been, and always would be, his city.

The City of Chains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lawful Evil Varric would kill Andrew Ryan on sight, but that's not to say they wouldn't have a bit in common.


End file.
